Use of Academic Library Information Technology Lending Programs
categories: announcement
Primary Research Group has published the: Survey of American College Students:
Use of Academic Library Information Technology Lending Programs, ISBN 978-
157440-510-1
This study looks at which devices and technologies students check out for loan
from college libraries, presenting detailed statistics on their use of
laptops, tablets, smartphones, cameras and camcorders, mics and audio
recorders, tripods, external hard drives, calculators, headphones and
headsets, student response systems or “clickers”, mobile device chargers,
presentation technology and other devices and technologies.
The study also presents results of an open-ended question through which
students make known their wish lists for technologies and devices that they
would like to see available, or more available, from their academic libraries.
Data in the report is presented in the aggregate and then broken out
separately for fifteen different variables including but not limited to:
college grades, gender, income level, year of college standing, SAT/ACT
scores, regional origin, age, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, college
major and other personal variables, and by Carnegie class, enrollment size and
public/private status of the survey participants institutions of higher
education.
Just a few of this 110-page report’s many findings are that:
By a ratio of nearly 2:1 females were much more ardent borrowers than men of
student response systems or “tickers” technology: 3.46% of women vs. 1.72% of
men had borrowed them. Gay students were also more than twice as likely as
straight students to borrow this technology; 6.93% vs. 2.35%. Use also tends
to correlate with high ACT or SAT scores, the higher the score, the greater
the likelihood that a student has borrowed a clicker from their college
library.
The tendency to borrow calculators was lowest among students specializing in
mathematics, computer science, statistics and engineering.
Private college students were four times more likely than those at public
colleges to borrow tripods.
For a table of contents and an excerpt view the product page for this report